Literature prize winner drops out of Nobel ceremony

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Doris Lessing is unable to travel to Stockholm to receive her Nobel Prize in literature Dec. 10 due to back problems, the Nobel Foundation said Wednesday.

Instead, the $1.5 million prize will be presented to the 87-year-old British writer in London, it said.

Foundation spokeswoman Annika Pontikis said Lessing canceled the trip because of back problems.

Lessing had been invited to collect the award at the ceremony in Stockholm along with the Nobel winners in chemistry, physics, medicine and economics on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel 1896.

The Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Oslo, Norway, on the same date.

Lessing is the third literature laureate in the past four years to miss the Nobel festivities.

Jean-Paul Sartre, in 1964, is the only winner to have turned down the literature award altogether.